93313770 the Way of Pathei Mathos a Philosophical Compendiary

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dispassionate study, review, or a criticism of the philosophies or views, past andpresent, advanced by other individuals involved in the pursuit of philosophy as anacademic discipline or otherwise. Instead, the philosophy of pathei-mathos is theresult of of my own pathei-mathos, my own learning from diverse - sometimes outr,sometimes radical and often practical - ways of life and experiences over some fourdecades; of my subsequent reasoned analysis, over a period of several years, of thoseways and those experiences; of certain personal intuitions, spread over several

decades, regarding the numinous; of an interior process of personal and moralreflexion, lasting several years and deriving from a personal tragedy; and of mylife-long study and appreciation of Hellenic culture, an appreciation that led me totranslate works by Sappho, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Homer, and involved me in adetailed consideration of the weltanschauung of individuals such as Heraclitus(insofar as such weltanschauungen are known from recorded sayings and survivingbooks).

Given this appreciation, and as the name suggests, the philosophy of hascertain connexions to Hellenic culture and I tend therefore to use certain Greek wordsin order to try and elucidate my meaning and/or to express certain philosophicalprinciples regarded as important in - and for an understanding of - this philosophy; ausage of words which I have endeavoured to explain as and where necessary,sometimes by quoting passages from Hellenic literature or other works and byproviding translations of such passages. For it would be correct to assume that theethos of this philosophy is somewhat indebted to and yet - and importantly - is also adevelopment of the ethos of Hellenic culture; an indebtedness obvious in notions suchas , , avoidance of, and references to Heraclitus, Aeschylus, andothers, and a development manifest in notions such as empathy and the importanceattached to the virtue of compassion.

In addition, and possibly somewhat unconventionally since in accord with the Hellenicetymology of the word and the Homeric sense of [a] I view a philosopher assomeone who is a friend of whose companion is, who seeks to find, to acquire, tofollow, to befriend . Thus in this sense, a philosopher is someone seeking toacquire a certain skill (such as the learning/reasoning that is) and discover aparticular knowledge, such as a knowledge regarding Being and beings, rerumdivinarum et humanarum; a knowledge acquired or found by means of both using and from life itself via practical experience, practical learning; a dual senseevident from the meaning and usage of.

Thus my personal understanding of philosophy is that it is the result of the activityand the life of a philosopher; more correctly perhaps, it is both the written or therecorded or transmitted results of the lucubrations that such way of life (that such afollowing, such a seeking, of knowledge and wisdom) engenders, and of what theliving of such a life (that such befriending of) brings-into-being and/or reveals.And it is in this sense that I consider my way of a philosophy.

As for my prior ways of life, study, and experiences - the genesis of this particularphilosophy - they are mostly now in the public domain, and if anyone is interested inthem (for whatever reason) then they might profitably peruse some of my own

d Myatt - The Way of Pathei-Mathos

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writings concerning them. Writings such as: (i)Myngath, and (ii) The Ethos ofExtremism; and compilations such as: (i)De Novo Caelo et Nova Terra; (ii) TheCulture of Arte; (iii)Meditations on Extremism, and (iv)Remembering Wyrd.

All translations from Ancient Greek in this work are mine, and I have, at thesuggestion of a friend, added an appendix giving some brief explanations anddefinitions of some of the Greek and English terms used, some of which explanations

and definitions are taken either from the body of the text or from footnotes and/orwhich may expand upon the body of the text or footnotes.

David Myatt24th April 2012 ce

[a] For example, Odyssey, Book I, v.301-302

, , , , .

Thus should you, my friend - who I see are strong and fully-grown -

Be as brave, so that those born after you will speak well of you.

IPathei-Mathos as Authority and Way

The Greek term derives from The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (written c.458 BCE), and can be interpreted, or translated, as meaning learning from adversary,or wisdom arises from (personal) suffering; or personal experience is the genesis oftrue learning.

However, this expression should be understood in context [1], for what Aeschyluswrites is that the Immortal, Zeus, guiding mortals to reason, has provided we mortalswith a new law, which law replaces previous ones, and which new law this new

guidance laid down for mortals is pathei-mathos.

Thus, for we human beings, pathei-mathos possesses a numinous, a living, authority[2] that is, the wisdom, the understanding, that arises from one's own personalexperience, from formative experiences that involve some hardship, some grief, somepersonal suffering, is often or could be more valuable to us (more alive, moremeaningful) than any doctrine, than any religious faith, than any words one mighthear from someone else or read in some book.

In many ways, this Aeschylean view is an enlightened a very human one, and is


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somewhat in contrast to the faith and revelation-centred view of religions such asJudaism, Islam, and Christianity. In the former, it is the personal experience oflearning from, and dealing with, personal suffering and adversity, that is paramountand which possesses authority and 'meaning'. In the latter, it is faith that some writtenor transmitted work or works is or are a sacred revelation from the supreme deity onebelieves in which is paramount, which possess meaning and authority, often combinedwith a belief that this supreme deity has appointed or authorized some mortal being or

beings, or some Institution, as their earthly representative(s), and which Institutionand/or representative(s) therefore are believed to possess or are accepted aspossessing authority or are regarded as authoritative.

Thus, the Aeschylean view is that learning, and hence wisdom, often or perhapsmostly arises from within us, by virtue of that which afflicts us (and which afflictionscould well be understood as from the gods/Nature or from some supra-personalsource) and from our own, direct, personal, practical, experience. In contrast, theconventional religious view is that wisdom can be found in some book (especially insome religious text), or be learnt from someone considered to be an authority, or whohas been appointed as some authority by some Institution, religious or otherwise.

The essential difference between these two ways is therefore that pathei-mathos is theway of direct learning from personal experience, while the religious way is often ormostly the way of secondary or tertiary learning, from others; of accepting orbelieving what is written by or taught by someone else or laid down in some dogma,some creed, some book, or by some external authority, such as an Institution.

For The Way of Pathei-Mathos, it is the personal learning that pathei-mathos providesor can provide, combined with - balanced by - the insight, the knowing, that empathy

provides, which are considered as possessing authority, and which can aid us todiscover wisdom.

The Way of Pathei-Mathos

The fundamental axioms of The Way of Pathei-Mathos are:

1) That human beings possess a mostly latent perceptive faculty, the faculty ofempathy - - which when used, or when developed and used, can provide uswith a particular type of knowing, a particular type of knowledge, and especially acertain knowledge concerning the (the physis, the nature or character) ofhuman beings and other living beings.

2) This type of knowing, this perception, is different from and supplementary to thatacquired by means of the Aristotelian essentials of conventional philosophy andexperimental science [3], and thus enables us to better understand Phainmenon,ourselves, and other living beings.


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3) That because of or following there is or there can be a change in, adevelopment of, the nature, the character - the - of the person because of thatrevealing and that appreciation (or re-appreciation) of the numinous whose genesis isthis , and which appreciation of the numinous includes an awareness ofwhy is an error (often the error) of unbalance, of disrespect or ignorance (of thenuminous), of a going beyond the due limits, and which itself is the genesis bothof the [4] and of the modern error of extremism. For the tyrannos and the

modern extremist (and their extremisms) embody and give rise to and perpetuate [5] and thus are a cause of, or contribute to and aid, suffering.

4) This change, this development of the individual, is or can be the result ofenantiodromia [6] and reveals the nature of, and restores in individuals, the naturalbalance necessary for [7] to flourish - which natural balance is as [8]and which restoration of balance within the individual results in [9], manifestas (harmony) is in the cultivation, in the individual, of wu-wei [10] and (a fair and balanced personal, individual, judgement) [11].

5) The development and use of empathy, the cultivation of wu-wei and , arethus a means, a way, whereby individuals can cease to cause suffering or cease tocontribute to, or cease to aid, suffering.

6) The reason as to why an individual might so seek to avoid causing suffering is thereason, the knowledge - the appreciation of the numinous - that empathy and provide.

7) This appreciation of the numinous inclines or can incline an individual to living in acertain way and which way of life naturally inclines the individual toward developing,in a natural way - sans any methodology, praxis, theory, dogma, or faith - certain

attributes of character, and which attributes of character include compassion,self-restraint, fairness, and a reasoned, a personal, judgement.

IIThe Nature and Knowledge of Empathy

Empathy is, as an intuitive understanding, what was, can be, and often is, learned ordeveloped by . That is, from and by a direct, personal, learning fromexperience and suffering. An understanding manifest in our awareness of thenuminous and thus in the distinction we have made, we make, or we are capable ofmaking, between the sacred and the profane; the distinction made, for example in thepast, between and and mortals, and thus manifest in thatunderstanding of and which can be obtained from the works of Sophocles,and Aeschylus [12], and from an understanding of evident in some of the


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sayings attributed to Heraclitus [13].

Understood by reference to such classical illustrations, empathy is thus what naturallypredisposed us to appreciate and be aware, respectful of, the goddess,[14], and thus avoid retribution for committing the error of, for disrupting thenatural balance necessary for individual and communal well-being.

That is, a certain empathy is, and has been, the natural basis for a tradition whichinforms us, and reminds us - through Art, literature, myths, legends, the accumulated of individuals, and often through a religious-type awareness - of the needfor a balance, for , achieved by not going beyond the numinous limits.

As a used and a developed faculty, the perception that empathy provides is ofundivided and of the emanations of, of our place in the Cosmic Perspective:of how we are a connexion to other life; of how we are but one mortal fallibleemanation of Life; of how we affect or can affect the well-being - the very being, - of other mortals and other life; and how other mortals and other living beingsinteract with us and can affect us, in a good or a harmful way.

Empathy thus involves a translocation of ourselves and thus a knowing-of anotherliving-being as that living-being is, without presumptions and sans all ideations, allprojections. In a simple way, empathy involves a numinous sympathy with anotherliving-being; a becoming for a causal moment or moments of that other-being, sothat we know, can feel, can understand, the suffering or the joy of that living-being. Insuch moments, there is no distinction made between them and us there is only theflow of life; only the presencing and the ultimate unity of Life itself.

This knowing-of another living-being and this knowledge of the Cosmic Perspective -this empathic awareness of Life - inclines us toward compassion; toward the humanvirtue of having (sympatheia, benignity) with and toward other livingbeings. For such an awareness involves being sensitive to, respectful of, other Life,and not arrogantly, in a hubriatic manner, imposing ourselves or trying to imposeourselves on Life and its emanations. That is, there is the cultivation of the naturalbalance that is wu-wei because of our awareness of how other Life, other living-beings, can suffer, and how some-things, some actions, are unwise because they do orcan cause suffering or have caused suffering.

In effect, empathy uncovers or can uncover the nature of our being and the nature ofBeing itself.

IIIThe Nature of Being and of Beings


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Empathy uncovers the a-causal nature of Being; of how, as Heraclitus expressed it infragment 53, beings have their genesis,

, , , .

Polemos our genesis, governing us all to bring forth some gods, some mortal beings with someunfettered yet others kept bound. [15]

and how

All by genesis is appropriately apportioned [separated into portions] with beings bound

together again by enantiodromia [16]

and why is important:

,

Most excellent is balanced reasoning, for that skill can tell inner character from outer. [17]

Empathy also reveals why the assumption that abstracted, ideated, opposites apply to

or should apply to living beings - and that they thus can supply us with knowledge andunderstanding of living being - disrupts the natural balance, resulting in a loss of and and is therefore a manifestation of the error of.

The Acausal Nature of Being

The empathic perception of an undivided and of living beings as emanations of, and the knowledge of ourselves and one affective and effecting fallible mortalconnexion to other life that such a perception provides, leads to an understanding of

Being, of, as a-causal: as beyond the linearity of a simple and direct cause-and-effect and beyond the supposition that we are separated beings. This perception -and this knowing of the acausal nature of Being deriving from it - is numinous; that is,of how beings are part of Being and of how they come-into-being, are affected andaffecting, and so Change and are Change: of how Life flows and ebbs and continuesundivided, unseparated, a-temporal, and is only temporarily manifest in particularbeings only erroneously perceived by us as discrete entities, as separated beings.

As Heraclitus mentioned as recorded in fragment 52:


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For Aeon, we are a game, pieces moved on some board: since, in this world of ours, we are but

children.

For the perception and the knowing of causality in respect of living beings is that ofthe-separation-of-otherness; a notion of causal and linear separation, of past-present-

future, of independent beings that gives rise to two things. (1) Of how we humanconsider we are different from or similar to other individual human beings. Adifference or a similarity deriving from posited, manufactured, ideated, categories towhich we assign others and ourselves and from which we often or mostly derive ouridentity, our self-assurance, and our belief about their and our , or at least whatwe assume is a knowledge of such things. (2) Of how such separately existing humanbeings are not subject to - or can and should make themselves not subject to or canovercome or ignore - any external supra-personal non-physical (non-temporal) force orforces, and thus of how these separated human beings have or can acquire the ability,the skill, to 'determine their own destiny/fate/life' by some means if the right method,

or some methodology, or some tool - such as some idea or theory - can be found ordeveloped, or if they develope their physical prowess/intelligence/cunning or acquiresufficient wealth/power/influence/followers.

Such a purely causal perception and causal understanding of living beings - lacking asit does an awareness of, an appreciation and a feeling for the numinous, or wilfullyignoring the numinous - is the genesis of and can thus bring-into-being the [4].

An example of this reliance on causal perception and causal understanding is Oedipus,as described by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus. In his singular desire to find the killerof Laius, Oedipus oversteps the due limits, and upsets the natural balance both within,and external to, himself. He is blinded by mere causality (a linear thinking) andsubsumed by personal feelings by his overwhelming desire for a simple cause-and-effect solution to the plague and his prideful belief that he, a mortal, a strongman, and master of the riddle of the Sphinx, can find or derive a solution. What resultsis tragedy, suffering, for himself and for others.

, , , ,

, . , .

You natives of Thebes: Observe here is Oedipus,

He who understood that famous enigma and was a strong man:

What clansman did not behold that fortune without envy?

But what a tide of problems have come over him!

Therefore, look toward that ending which is for us mortals,


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To observe that particular day calling no one lucky until,

Without the pain of injury, they are conveyed beyond lifes ending.

(Oedipus Tyrannus, vv. 1524-1530)

Another example is Creon, as described by Sophocles in hisAntigone. Creon's pride

and stubbornness, and his rigid adherence to his own, causal (temporal), mortal, edict which overturns an ancestral custom established and maintained to 'please the gods'and implement a natural edict of the gods designed to give and maintain balance,harmony, among the community leads to tragedy, to suffering.

The same thing occurred to Odysseus, who for all his prowess and mortal cunningcould not contrive to return to his homeland as he wished nor save his friends, and

k , . , :

,, : .

whose vigour, at sea, was weakened by many afflictions

As he strove to win life for himself and return his comrades to their homes.

But not even he, for all this yearning, could save those comrades

For they were destroyed by their own immature foolishness

Having devoured the cattle of Helios, that son of Hyperion,

Who plucked from them the day of their returning.

(Homer, Odyssey, vv.3-9)

Such emphasis by mortals on causality, arising from a lack of the acausal, thenuminous, perspective that empathy and provide, is in effect an ignoringof, a wilful defiance of, or a forgetfulness of, the natural balance, of our own nature,and of the gods. Expressed un-theistically, it is a lack of, or a covering-up of, or anignorance of, the the nature of Being and of beings, of who and why we are, and whywu-wei is a wise way to live.

Our nature - which empathy and can reveal - is that of a mortal being

veering between (thoughtful reasoning, and thus fairness) and .

As Sophocles expressed it:

...

,

There exists much that is strange, yet nothing

Has more strangeness than a human being...


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Beyond his own hopes, his cunning

In inventive arts - he who arrives

Now with dishonour, then with chivalry

Antigone, v.334, vv.365-366

Yet as empathy and also reveal, our nature is such that we also have hope

and a choice. We can choose to be fair, rational, beings who appreciate and cultivate; who appreciate the numinous and and who understand forthe error, the misfortune, the unbalance, it is. Or we can, like Oedipus, Creon,Aegisthus, and the comrades of Odysseus, foolishly, recklessly, veer toward andembrace and .

We can appreciate the numinous - be wary of .We can kindle and rekindle the 'fire of reason', and appreciate that when 'more isobtained than is necessary it is not kept'. Or we can take short-cuts, foolishlyoverladen ourselves, and in our recklessness believe we are immune to injury:

, . - .

.

: . . ,

, . - .


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; ; ,

. - .

And so, although I have no lyre, I sing:

For there is a desire, within me - a self-taught hymn

For one of those Furies,

With nothing at all to bring meThat cherished confidence - hope.

And my stomach is by no means idle -

In fairness, it is from achieving a judgement

That the beat of my heart continues to change.

And so there is this supplication of mine:

For this defeat of my hope to be false

So that, that thing cannot be achieved.

In truth, that frequently unsatisfied goddess, Health,

Has a limit - for Sickness, her neighbour,

Leans against their shared fence;

And it is the fate of the mortal who takes the short-cutTo strike the unseen reef.

And yet if - of those possessions previously acquired

A fitting amount is, through caution, cast forth by a sling,

Then the whole construction will not go under -

Injuriously over-loaded as it was -

Nor will its hull be filled, by the sea.

Often, the gifts from Zeus are abundant

And there is, then, from the yearly ploughing,

A death for famine's sickness.

But if once upon the earth there falls from

A mortal that death-making black blood -What incantation can return it to his arms?

Not even he who was correctly-taught

How to bring back those who had died

Was allowed by Zeus to be without injury.

Were it not that Fate was ordained

By the gods to make it fated

That when more is obtained it is not kept,

My heart would have been first

To let my tongue pour forth these things.


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But now, in darkness, it murmurs,

Painfully-desiring, and having no hope of when

There will be an opportunity to bring this to an end,

Rekindling the fire of reason.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon, vv.990-1033

The Error of The-Separation-of-Otherness

The essence of the faculty of empathy is with other living beings and which involves a translocation of ourselves for a duration or durations of causalmoments. There is thus a perception of the acausal, the numinous, reality underlyingthe causal division of beings, existents, into separate, causal-separated, objects andthe subject-object relationship which is or has been assumed by means of the processof causal ideation to exist between such causally-separate beings. That is, and forinstance, the implied or assumed causal separateness of living beings - the-separation-

of-otherness - is causal appearance and not an expression of the true nature of Beingand beings.

The-separation-of-otherness obscures and disrupts our relation to and thusobscures the nature of our being and the nature of Being itself, and amounts to .For, in place of an understanding, a knowing, and thus an appreciation and acceptanceof what is numinous - and thus of the natural balance and of what/whom we shouldrespect - the-separation-of-otherness results in the positing of abstractcategories/idealised forms to which we, as living beings, are assigned and whichcategories and forms are regarded as what we should aspire to and/or compare

ourselves to and what we are judged by or judge ourselves by.

In classical terms, the natural balance and those whom we should respect - manifestin and and and and inthose sacred places guarded or watched over by - are arrogantly replacedby human manufactured, and fallible, ideations and which ideations do not in any wayre-present the nature, the , of our being, the of other living beings, and of Being, and which is one of the living connexions, the numinosity, of and thus of the Cosmic Perspective, a nature manifest, for we mortals, in anappreciation of the numinous and thus in living in a certain way because we

understand the nature, the importance, of, of fairness, of not being excessive.

The result of such - ofthe-separation-of-otherness and of the arroganceassigning living beings to and judging them by lifeless abstractions, ideations; ofneglecting and and - is :strife, discord, disruption, conflict, suffering, misfortune, and a loss of and.

As Aeschylus mentioned, over two thousand years ago:


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-, . .

, . . , , , ...

:

For unharmed is the one

Who rightly reasons that what is sufficientIs what is allotted to him.

For there is no protection

In riches for the man of excess

Who stamps down the great altar of the goddess, Judgement,

In order to hide it from view.

But vigorously endures Temptation -

That already-decided daughter of unbearable Misfortune.

And all remedies are in vain.

Not concealed, but conspicuous -

A harsh shining light -

Is the injury...

But not one of the gods hears the supplications:

Instead, they take down those persons

Who, lacking fairness, turn their attentions to such things.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon. vv.379-389, vv. 396-402

IVAn Appreciation of The Numinous

Empathy by its very nature - by its relocation, translocation, of ourselves into, and with, the living other- naturally inclines us toward compassion, for tointentionally harm the living otheris to feel, to know, that harm. Such harming mightalso upset, unbalance, hinder, or harm, the we share with that and with other


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living beings and so in some way cause, or contribute to, or result in harm, suffering,or misfortune to us and/or to others now or on some future occasion or occasions.

In effect, compassion is a means to maintain and the natural balance of Lifeand thus to aid or contribute to our own and well-being as well as that ofothers.

Empathy - like - also inclines us toward treating other human beings aswe ourselves would wish to be treated; that is it inclines us toward fairness, towardself-restraint, toward being well-mannered, and toward an appreciation andunderstanding of innocence, with innocence being regarded as an attribute of thosewho, being personally unknown to us, are therefore unjudged us by and who thus aregiven the benefit of the doubt. For this presumption of innocence of others untildirect personal experience, and individual and empathic knowing of them, proveotherwise is the fair, the reasoned, the numinous thing to do.

Thus morality is, for The Way of Pathei-Mathos, a result of individuals using thefaculty of empathy; a consequence of the insight and the understanding (the acausal

knowing) that empathy provides for individuals in the immediacy-of-the-moment. Or,expressed another way, morality resides not in some abstract theory or somemoralistic schemata presented in some written text which individuals have to acceptand try and conform or aspire to, but rather in personal virtues that arise or which canarise naturally through empathy, , and thus from an awareness andappreciation of the numinous. Personal virtues such as compassion and fairness, and, that quality of self-restraint, of a balanced, well-mannered conduct especiallyunder adversity or duress, of which Cicero wrote:

Haec autem scientia continentur ea, quam Graeci nominant, non

hanc, quam interpretamur modestiam, quo in verbo modus inest, sed illa est, in qua intellegitur ordinis conservatio

Those two qualities are evident in that way described by the Greeks as although

what is meant by is not what we mean by the moderation of the moderate, but rather

what we consider is restrained behaviour...

De Officiis, Liber Primus, 142

In practice, therefore, justice is not some abstract concept, some ideation, which it is

believed can and should be administered by others and requiring the individual toaccept, passively or willingly, some external authority. Rather, justice, like ,like goodness, is numinous, living in the individual who - because of empathy,, awareness and appreciation of the numinous - is inclined to be fair, who iscapable of restraint especially under adversity or duress; the individual ofwho thus "can tell inner character from outer" and who thus has those personalqualities which can be expressed by one word: honour.

The Numinous Balance of Honour


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In many ways, the personal virtue of honour, and the cultivation of wu-wei, are -together - a practical, a living, manifestation of our understanding and appreciation ofthe numinous; of how to live, to behave, as empathy intimates we can or should inorder to avoid committing the folly, the error, of, in order not to cause suffering,and in order to re-present, to acquire, .

For personal honour is essentially a presencing, a grounding, of - of Life, of our - occurring when the insight (the knowing) of a developed empathy inclines ustoward a compassion that is, of necessity, balanced by and in accord with.

This balancing of compassion - of the need not to cause suffering - by and is perhaps most obvious on that particular occasion when it may be judgednecessary to cause suffering to another human being. That is, in honourableself-defence. For it is natural - part of our reasoned, fair, just, human nature - todefend ourselves when attacked and (in the immediacy of the personal moment) tovalorously, with chivalry, act in defence of someone close-by who is unfairly attackedor dishonourably threatened or is being bullied by others, and to thus employ, if ourpersonal judgement of the circumstances deem it necessary, lethal force.

This use of force is, importantly, crucially, restricted - by the individual nature of ourjudgement, and by the individual nature of our authority - to such personal situationsof immediate self-defence and of valorous defence of others, and cannot be extendedbeyond that, for to so extend it, or attempt to extend it beyond the immediacy of thepersonal moment of an existing physical threat, is an arrogant presumption - an act of - which negates the fair, the human, presumption of innocence [15] of those wedo not personally know, we have no empathic knowledge of, and who present no

direct, immediate, personal, threat to us or to others nearby us.

Such personal self-defence and such valorous defence of another in a personalsituation are in effect a means to restore the natural balance which the unfair, thedishonourable, behaviour of others upsets. That is, such defence fairly, justly, andnaturally in the immediacy of the moment corrects their error of resulting fromtheir bad (their rotten) ; a rotten character evident in their lack of the virtue, theskill, of. For had they possessed that virtue, and if their character was notbad, they would not have undertaken such a dishonourable attack.

Wu-Wei and The Cultivation of Humility

The knowledge, the understanding, the intuition, the insight that is wu-wei is aknowledge, an understanding, that can be acquired from empathy, , andby a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous.

This knowledge and understanding, being of the wholeness, is that of the healthy, theinterior, inward, and personal balance beyond the separation of beings beyond


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and and thus beyond ; beyond the separation and thence the strife,the discord, which abstractions, ideations, encourage and indeed which theymanufacture, bring-into-being. Among these ideations - and one which can oftendistance us from an appreciation of the numinous and thus from - is that of ameasured Time of fixed durations; and one which thus has a tendency to bothartificially apportion out our lives, urge us to hastily strive for some ideation, andcause us to live and/or work at an artificial, un-harmonious, pace.

Empathy, wu-wei, , and a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous,also incline us toward the cultivation of humility as a prerequisite for us not to repeatour errors of, or the of others, and which mistakes of - ours and/or ofothers - we either are personally aware of or can become aware of through therecorded of our human cultures, manifest as this transmitted knowledgeand personal learning often is in literature, Art, poetry, myths, legends, and music.

For our personal makes us aware of, makes us feel, know, remember, in avery personal sense, our fallibility, our mortality, our mistakes, our errors, our wrongdeeds, the suffering we have caused, the harm we have done and inflicted; how much

we personally have contributed to discord, strife, sorrow. Similarly, our appreciation ofthe numinous, together with empathy and the cultivation of wu-wei, makes us awareof, and feel, and understand, and the errors of in others past and present.

There is then, or there develops or there can develope, a personal inclination toward; toward being fair, toward rational deliberation, toward a lack of haste,toward a living numinously. Toward a balanced judgement, and honour, and a knowingand appreciation of the wisdom that the only effective, long-lasting, change andreform that does not cause suffering - that is not redolent of - is the one thatchanges human beings in an individual way by personal example and/or because of

, and thus interiorly changes what, in them, predisposes them, or inclinesthem toward, doing or what urges them to do, what is dishonourable, undignified,unfair, and uncompassionate. That is what, individually, changes or rebalances bad and thus brings-into-being, or restores, good .

Conclusion - The Way of Pathei-Mathos

It is the cultivation by individuals of empathy, of wu-wei, of a reasonedjudgement, combined with (i) an appreciation of the numinous and of our accumulatedpathei-mathos - evident, for example, in Hellenic culture, in other cultures, and oftenmanifest in Art, literature, music, myths, legends, poetry - and (ii) the living of acompassionate life balanced by honour, which are the whole of The Way of Pathei-Mathos.

The Way of Pathei-Mathos is thus an ethical, an interior, a personal, a non-political, a


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non-religious, a non-interfering, way of individual reflexion and individual change.

There is nothing else. No given, no required, praxis. No 'secret wisdom' or 'secretteachings', no enlightenment to be taught. No methodology, no theology, and no needfor faith or belief. There are no theories, no goals, no dogma, no texts and no one to berevered.

Notes

[1]

: -

, .

If anyone, from reasoning, exclaims loudly that victory of Zeus,Then they have acquired an understanding of all these things;Of he who guided mortals to reason,Who laid down that this possesses authority:Learning from adversity.

Aeschylus: Agamemnon,174-183

[2] An awareness of the numinous is what predisposes us not to commit the error, thefolly, of. As Sophocles wrote in Oedipus Tyrannus:

:, , , ,

Insolence plants the tyrant. There is insolence if by a great foolishness thereis a useless over-filling which goes beyond the proper limits. It is anascending to the steepest and utmost heights and then that hurtling towardthat Destiny where the useful foot has no use (vv.872ff)

In respect ofthe numinous, basically it is what manifests or can manifest or remind usof (what can reveal) the natural balance of; a balance which upsets. Thisnatural balance - our being as human beings - is or can be manifest to us in or by what


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is harmonious, or what reminds us of what is harmonious and beautiful. In a practicalway, it is what we regard or come to appreciate as 'sacred' and dignified; whatexpresses our humanity and thus places us, as individuals, in our correct relation to, and which relation is that we are but one mortal emanation of.

We are reminded of this natural balance, of what is numinous - we can come to know,to experience, the numinous and thus can understand the nature of our being - by

and empathy. That is, by the process of learning from personaladversity/personal suffering/personal grief and by using and developing our faculty ofempathy.

An aspect of this learning is an appreciation, an awareness, of the Cosmic Perspective:of ourselves as one fallible, mortal, fragile biological, microcosmic, nexion on oneplanet in one Galaxy in a Cosmos of billions of galaxies; one connexion to, oneemanation of, all other Life. In essence, and empathy teach us or canteach us humility, compassion, and the importance of personal love.

[3] The essentials which Aristotle enumerated are: (i) Reality (existence) exists

independently of us and our consciousness, and thus independent of our senses; (ii)our limited understanding of this independent 'external world' depends for the mostpart upon our senses - that is, on what we can see, hear or touch; that is, on what wecan observe or come to know via our senses; (iii) logical argument, or reason, isperhaps the most important means to knowledge and understanding of and about this'external world'; (iv) the cosmos (existence) is, of itself, a reasoned order subject torational laws.

Experimental science seeks to explain the natural world the phenomenal world bymeans of direct, personal observation of it, and by making deductions, and

formulating hypothesis, based on such direct observation, with the important andnecessary proviso, expressed by Isaac Newton in hisPrincipia, that

"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are bothtrue and sufficient to explain their appearance.. for Nature is pleased withsimplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes."

[4] The sense of is not exactly what our fairly modern term tyrant iscommonly regarded as imputing. Rather, it refers to the intemperate person of excesswho is so subsumed with some passion or some aim or a lust for power that they gofar beyond the due, the accepted, bounds of behaviour and thus exceed the limits of ormisuse whatever authority they have been entrusted with. Thus do they, by theirexcess, by their disrespect for the customs of their ancestors, by their lack ofreasoned, well-balanced, judgement [] offend the gods, and thus, to restorethe balance, do the take revenge. For it is in the nature of the thatthey forget, or they scorn, the truth, the ancient wisdom, that their lives are subjectto, guided by, -

.


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Who then compels to steer us?

Trimorphed Moirai with their ever-heedful Furies!

Aeschylus (attributed), Prometheus Bound, 515-6

[5] Heraclitus, fragment 80:

, , []

One should be aware that Polemos pervades, with discord , and that beings are naturallyborn by discord.

See my Some Notes on and in Heraclitus B80 and also The Balance ofPhysis Notes on and in Heraclitus.

In respect of the modern error of that is extremism, an error manifest inextremists, my understanding of an extremist is a person who tends toward harshness,or who is harsh, or who supports/incites harshness, in pursuit of some objective,usually of a political or a religious. See Appendix I - Some Explanations andDefinitions.

[6] See Appendix II - The Change of Enantiodromia.

[7] The meaning here of is derived from the usage of Homer, Aeschylus,

Aristotle, etcetera, and implies Life qua being. Or, expressed another way, livingbeings are emanations of, and thus manifest, . This sense of is beautifullyexpressed in a, in my view, rather mis-understood fragment attributed to Heraclitus:

, , , . Fragment 36

Where the water begins our living ends and where earth begins water ends,and yet earth nurtures water and from that water, Life.

[8] In respect of the numinous principle of, refer to Appendix II - The Principle of.

[9] Although has a natural tendency to become covered up ( - concealment accompanies Physis) it can be uncovered through and.

[10] Wu-wei is a Taoist term used in The Way of Pathei-Mathos to refer to a personal'letting-be' deriving from a feeling, a knowing, that an essential part of wisdom is


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cultivation of an interior personal balance and which cultivation requires acceptancethat one must work with, or employ, things according to their nature, their , forto do otherwise is incorrect, and inclines us toward, or is, being excessive that is,toward the error, the unbalance, that is hubris, an error often manifest in personalarrogance, excessive personal pride, and insolence - that is, a disrespect for thenuminous.

In practice, the knowledge, the understanding, the intuition, the insight that is wu-weiis a knowledge, an understanding, that can be acquired from empathy, ,and by a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous. This knowledge andunderstanding is of wholeness and that life, things/beings, change, flow, exist, incertain natural ways which we human beings cannot change however hard we mighttry; that such a hardness of human trying, a belief in such hardness, is unwise,un-natural, upsets the natural balance and can cause misfortune/suffering for usand/or for others, now or in the future. Thus success lies in discovering the innernature (the physis) of things/beings/ourselves and gently, naturally, slowly, workingwith this inner nature, not striving against it.

[11] Heraclitus, fragment 112:

,

Most excellent is balanced reasoning, for that skill can tell inner characterfrom outer.

[12] In particular, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus; and the Oedipus Tyrannus, andAntigone, of Sophocles. In respect ofOedipus Tyrannus, refer, for example, to vv.863ffand vv.1329-1338

In much mis-understood verses in The Agamemnon (1654-1656) Clytaemnestra makesit known that she still is aware of the power, and importance, of. Of not killing toexcess:

, , . , . : .

The aforementioned verses are often mis-translated to give some nonsense such as:'No more violence. Here is a monstrous harvest and a bitter reaping time. There ispain enough already. Let us not be bloody now'.

However, what Aeschylus actually has Clytaemnestra say is:

"Let us not do any more harm for to reap these many would make it an


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unluckyharvest: injure them just enough, but do not stain us with theirblood."

She is being practical (and quite Hellenic) and does not want to bring misfortune(from the gods) upon herself, or Aegisthus, by killing to excess. The killings she hasdone are, however, quite acceptable to her - she has vigorously defended themclaiming it was her natural duty to avenge her daughter and the insult done to her byAgamemnon bringing his mistress, Cassandra, into her home. Clytaemnestra shows nopity for the Elders whom Aegisthus wishes to kill: "if you must", she says, "you caninjure them. But do not kill them - that would be unluckyfor us." That would be goingjust too far, and overstep what she still perceives as the natural, the proper, limits ofmortal behaviour.

[13] Two fragments attributed to Heraclitus are of interest in this respect - 112, and123. For 112 refer to my The Balance of Physis Notes on and inHeraclitus. For 123, refer to myPhysis, Nature, Concealment, and Natural Change.

[14] Hesiod, Theogony v. 901 -

In effect, a personified Judgement is the goddess of the natural balance - evident inthe ancestral customs, the ways, the way of life, the ethos, of a community - whosejudgement, , is "in accord with", has the nature or the character of, what tends torestore such balance after some deed or deeds by an individual or individuals haveupset or disrupted that balance. This sense of as one's ancestral customs isevident, for example, in Homer's Odyssey:

,

Book III, 243-246

I now wish to ask Nestor some questions to find out about some other things,

For he understands others and knows more about our customs than them,

Having been - so it is said - a Chieftain for three generations of mortals,

And, to look at, he seems to me to be one of those immortals

[15] is not some abstract 'war' or strife or kampf, but rather that which is orbecomes the genesis of beings from Being (the separation of beings from Being), andthus not only that which manifests as but also accompanies because it is thenature of that beings, born because of and by , can be returned to Being,become bound together - be whole - again by enantiodromia.

Thus - like and and and and as// - is a philosophical principle and should therefore in my view not beblandly translated by a single word or term, but rather should be left untranslated or


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be transliterated, thus requiring for its understanding a certain thoughtful reasoningand thence interpretation according to context.

In respect of such interpretation, it is for example interesting that in the recountedtales of Greek mythology attributed to Aesop, and in circulation at the time ofHeraclitus, a personified (as the of kindred strife) married apersonified (as the of arrogant pride) and that it was a common folkbelief that accompanied - that is, that Polemos followed Hubris aroundrather than vice versa, causing or bringing .

[16] See Appendix II. The saying - attributed to Heraclitus - is from Diogenes Lartius,Lives of Eminent Philosophers (ix. 7)

[17] Fragment 112.

[18] For an explanation is what is meant here by innocence, see the entry in AppendixI, which entry is based on the brief mention of innocence in the first part of section IV-An Appreciation of The Numinous.

Appendix ISome Explanations, Terms, and Definitions

Acausal

The acausal is not a generalization a concept deriving from a collocation ofassumed, imagined, or causally observed Phainmenon, but instead is that wordless,conceptless, a-temporal, knowing which empathy reveals and which a personal and an appreciation of the numinous often inclines us toward. That is, theacausal is a direct and personal (individual) revealing of beings and Being which doesnot depend on denoting or naming.

What is so revealed is the a-causal nature of some beings, the connexion which existsbetween living beings, and how living beings are emanations of.

Thus speculations and postulations regarding the acausal only serve to obscure the

nature of the acausal or distance us from that revealing of the acausal that empathyand and an appreciation of the numinous provide.

The prized Hellenic virtue which can roughly be translated by the English word'excellence' but which also implies what is naturally distinguishable - what ispre-eminent - because it reveals or shows certain valued qualities such as beauty,honour, valour, harmony.


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Compassion

The English word compassion dates from around 1340 CE and the word in its originalsense (and as used in this work) means benignity, which word derives from the Latinbenignitatem, the sense imputed being of a kind, compassionate, well-manneredcharacter, disposition, or deed. Benignity came into English usage around the same

time as compassion; for example, the word occurs in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde [ii. 483 ] written around 1374 CE.

Hence, compassion is understood as meaning being kindly disposed toward and/orfeeling a sympathy with someone (or some living being) affected by pain/suffering/grief or who is enduring vicissitudes.

The word compassion itself is derived from com, meaning together-with, combinedwith pati, meaning to-suffer/to-endure and derived from the classical Latin passi.Thus useful synonyms for compassion, in this original sense, are compassivityandbenignity.

Cosmic Perspective

The Cosmic Perspective refers to our place in the Cosmos, to the fact that we humanbeings are simply one fragile fallible mortal biological life-form on one planet orbitingone star in one galaxy in a Cosmos of billions of galaxies. Thus in terms of thisperspective all our theories, our ideas, our beliefs, our abstractions are merely theopinionated product of our limited fallible Earth-bound so-called intelligence, an

intelligence, an understanding, we foolishly, arrogantly, pridefully have a tendency tobelieve in and exalt as if we are somehow the centre of the Universe and cosmicallyimportant.

The Cosmic Perspective inclines us or can incline us toward wu-wei, towardavoiding the error of hubris, toward humility, and thus toward an appreciation of thenuminous.

A is not one of the pantheon of major Greek gods - but rather a lessertype of divinity who might be assigned by those gods to bring good fortune ormisfortune to human beings and/or watch over certain human beings and especiallyparticular numinous (sacred) places.

Depending on context, could be the judgement of an individual (or Judgement


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personified), or the natural and the necessary balance, or the correct/customary/ancestral way, or what is expected due to custom, or what is considered correct andnatural, and so on.

A personified Judgement - the of Hesiod - is the goddess of the natural balance,evident in the ancestral customs, the ways, the way of life, the ethos, of a community,whose judgement, , is "in accord with", has the nature or the character of, what

tends to restore such balance after some deed or deeds by an individual or individualshave upset or disrupted that balance. This sense of as one's ancestral customs isevident, for example, in Homer (Odyssey, III, 244).

The modern numinous principle of - qv. Appendix III - suggests what lies beyondand what may have been the genesis of personified as the goddess, Judgement.

Empathy

Etymologically, this fairly recent English word, used to translate the GermanEinfhlung, derives, via the late Latin sympathia, from the Greek - - and is thus formed from the prefix (sym) together with - [root of] meaning enduring/suffering, feeling: , to endure/suffer.

As used and defined by the philosophy of pathei-mathos, empathy - - is anatural human faculty: that is, a noble intuition about another human being or anotherliving being. When empathy is developed and used, as envisaged by that way of life,then it is a specific and extended type of. That is, it is a type of and ameans to knowing and understanding another human being and/or other living beings- and thus differs in nature from compassion.

Enantiodromia

The unusual compound Greek word occurs in a summary of thephilosophy of Heraclitus by Diogenes Lartius.

It is used here to refer to, to name, to describe, the process - the natural change, thereformation - that occurs or which can occur in a human being because of or following .

For further details regarding enantiodromia refer to Appendix II - The Change ofEnantiodromia.

Strife; discord; disruption; a quarrel between friends or kin. As in the Odyssey:

.


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Who placed strife between those two sons of Atreus

Odyssey, 3, 136

According to the recounted tales of Greek mythology attributed to Aesop, wascaused by, or was a consequence of, the marriage between a personified (as

the of kindred strife) and a personified (as the of arrogant pride)with Polemos rather forlornly following Hubris around rather than vice versa. Eris isthus the child of Polemos and Hubris.

Extremism

By extreme I mean to be harsh, so that my understanding of an extremist is a personwho tends toward harshness, or who is harsh, or who supports/incites harshness, inpursuit of some objective, usually of a political or a religious nature. Here, harsh is:

rough, severe, a tendency to be unfeeling, unempathic.

Hence extremism is considered to be: (a) the result of such harshness, and (b) theprinciples, the causes, the characteristics, that promote, incite, or describe the harshaction of extremists. In addition, a fanatic is considered to be someone with a surfeitof zeal or whose enthusiasm for some objective, or for some cause, is intemperate.

In the philosophical terms of the way of pathei-mathos, an extremist is someone whocommits the error of hubris; and error which enantiodromia - following from - can sometimes correct or forestall.

Honour

The English word honour dates from around 1200 CE, deriving from the Latinhonorem (meaning refined, grace, beauty) via the Old French (and thence Anglo-Norman) onor/onur. As used by The Way of Pathei-Mathos, honour means an instinctfor and an adherence to what is fair, dignified, and valourous. An honourable person isthus someone of manners, fairness, natural dignity, and valour.

In respect of early usage of the term, two quotes may be of interest. The first, from c.1393 CE, is taken from a poem, in Middle English, by John Gower:

And riht in such a maner wiseSche bad thei scholde hire don servise,So that Achilles underfongethAs to a yong ladi belongethHonour, servise and reverence.

John Gower, Confessio Amantis. Liber Quintus vv. 2997-3001 [Macaulay, G.C., ed. The Works


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of John Gower. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1901]

The second is from several centuries later:

" Honour - as something distinct from mere probity, and which supposes ingentlemen a stronger abhorrence of perfidy, falsehood, or cowardice, and amore elevated and delicate sense of the dignity of virtue, than are usuallyfound in vulgar minds."

George Lyttelton.History of the Life of Henry the Second. London, Printed for J. Dodsley. MDCC LXXV II [1777] (A new ed., cor.) vol 3, p.178

Innocence

Innocence is regarded as an attribute of those who, being personally unknown to us,are therefore unjudged us by and who thus are given the benefit of the doubt. For thispresumption of innocence of others until direct personal experience, and individualand empathic knowing of them, prove otherwise is the fair, the reasoned, thenuminous, the human, thing to do.

Empathy and incline us toward treating other human beings as weourselves would wish to be treated; that is they incline us toward fairness, towardself-restraint, toward being well-mannered, and toward an appreciation andunderstanding of innocence.

Numinous

The numinous is what manifests or can manifest or remind us of (what can reveal) thenatural balance of; a balance which upsets. This natural balance - ourbeing as human beings - is or can be manifest to us in or by what is harmonious, orwhat reminds us of what is harmonious and beautiful. In a practical way, it is what weregard or come to appreciate as 'sacred' and dignified; what expresses our humanityand thus places us, as individuals, in our correct relation to , and which relationis that we are but one mortal emanation of.

Heraclitus fragment 80

is not some abstract 'war' or strife or kampf, but rather that which is orbecomes the genesis of beings from Being (the separation of beings from Being), andthus not only that which manifests as but also accompanies because it is thenature of that beings, born because of and by , can be returned to Being,become bound together - be whole - again by enantiodromia.

According to the recounted tales of Greek mythology attributed to Aesop, was


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caused by, or was a consequence of, the marriage between a personified (asthe of kindred strife) and a personified (as the of arrogant pride)with Polemos rather forlornly following Hubris around rather than vice versa. ThusEris is the child of Polemos and Hubris.

Furthermore, Polemos was originally the (not the god) of kindred strife,whether familial, of friends, or of ones (ones clan and their places of dwelling).

Thus, to describe Polemos, as is sometimes done, as the god of war, is doublyincorrect.

Physis ()

suggests either the Homeric - Odyssey, Book 10, vv. 302-3 - usage of nature, orcharacter, as in Herodotus (2.5.2):

or (Physis) as in Heraclitus fragment 123 - that is, the natural nature of allbeings, beyond their outer appearance, and which natural nature we, as humanbeings, have a natural [an unconscious] inclination to conceal; either because ofor through an ignorance, an unknowing, of ourselves as an emanation of.

In terms of the nature or the character of an individual:

,

Most excellent is balanced reasoning, for that skill can tell inner character from outer.

Heraclitus fragment 112

(hubris) is the error of personal insolence, of going beyond the proper limits setby: (a) reasoned (balanced) judgement and by (b) an awareness, apersonal knowing, of the numinous, and which knowing of the numinous can arisefrom empathy and .

Hubris upsets the natural balance is contrary to and often results from aperson or persons striving for or clinging to some causal abstraction.

According to The Way of Pathei-Mathos, disrupts - and conceals - ourappreciation of what is numinous and thus of what/whom we should respect,classically understood as and and


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and and those sacred places guarded or watched over by .

Wu-wei

Wu-wei is a Taoist term used in The Way of Pathei-Mathos to refer to a personal'letting-be' deriving from a feeling, a knowing, that an essential part of wisdom iscultivation of an interior personal balance and which cultivation requires acceptance

that one must work with, or employ, things according to their nature, their , forto do otherwise is incorrect, and inclines us toward, or is, being excessive that is,toward the error, the unbalance, that is hubris, an error often manifest in personalarrogance, excessive personal pride, and insolence - that is, a disrespect for thenuminous.

In practice, the knowledge, the understanding, the intuition, the insight that is wu-weiis a knowledge, an understanding, that can be acquired from empathy, ,and by a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous. This knowledge andunderstanding is of wholeness, and that life, things/beings, change, flow, exist, in

certain natural ways which we human beings cannot change however hard we mighttry; that such a hardness of human trying, a belief in such hardness, is unwise,un-natural, upsets the natural balance and can cause misfortune/suffering for usand/or for others, now or in the future. Thus success lies in discovering the innernature (the physis) of things/beings/ourselves and gently, naturally, slowly, workingwith this inner nature, not striving against it.

Life qua being. Our being as a living existent is considered an emanation of.Thus is what 'animates' us and what gives us our nature, , as humanbeings. Our nature is that of a mortal fallible being veering between (thoughtful reasoning, and thus fairness) and .

Appendix IIThe Change of Enantiodromia

The Meaning of Enantiodromia

The unusual compound Greek word occurs in a summary of thephilosophy of Heraclitus by Diogenes Lartius:


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(ix. 7)

This unusual word is usually translated as something like 'conflict of opposites' or'opposing forces' which I consider are incorrect for several reasons.

Firstly, in my view, a transliteration should be used instead of some translation, for theGreek expression suggests something unique, something which exists in its own rightas a principle or 'thing' and which uniqueness of meaning has a context, with bothcontext and uniqueness lost if a bland translation is attempted. Lost, as theuniqueness, and context, of for example, becomes lost if simply translatedas 'spirits' (or worse, as 'gods'), or as the meaning of in Hellenic culture is lostif mistranslated as 'evil'.

Second, the context seems to me to hint at something far more important than'conflict of opposites', the context being the interesting description of the philosophyof Heraclitus before and after the word occurs, as given by Diogenes Lartius:

1)

2)

3)

4)

The foundation/base/essence of all beings [ 'things' ] is pyros to which theyreturn, with all [of them] by genesis appropriately apportioned [separatedinto portions] to be bound together again by enantiodromia, and allfilled/suffused/vivified with/by and Dmons.

This raises several interesting questions, not least concerning and ,but also regarding the sense of. Is pyros here a philosophical principle - such as - or used as in fragment 43, the source of which is also Diogenes Lartius:

(ix 2)

Better to deal with your hubris before you confront that fire

Personally, I incline toward the former, of some principle being meant, given thecontext, and the generalization - . In respect of I would suggest that what is implied is the numinous, our apprehension ofThe Numen, and which numen is the source of and the origin of Dmons. For a is not one of the pantheon of major Greek gods - but another type of


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divinity (that is, another emanation of the numen; another manifestation of thenuminous) who might be assigned by those numinous gods to bring good fortune ormisfortune to human beings and/or who watch over certain human beings andespecially over particular numinous (sacred) places.

Thus the above summary of the philosophy of Heraclitus might be paraphrased as:

The foundation of all beings is Pyros to which they return, with all bygenesis appropriately apportioned to be bound together again byenantiodromia, with all beings suffused with [are emanations of] the numen.

Furthermore, hubris disrupts - and conceals - our appreciation of the numen, ourappreciation of and of Dmons: of what is numinous and what/whom we shouldrespect. A disruption that makes us unbalanced, makes us disrespect the numinousand that of the numinous (such as and and sacred places), and whichunbalance enantiodromia can correct, with enantiodromia suggesting a confrontation -

that expected dealing with our hubris necessary in order to return to Pyros, thesource of beings. Here, Pyros is understood not as we understand 'fire' - and not evenas some sort of basic physical element among other elements such as water - butrather as akin to both the constant 'warmth and the light of the Sun' (that brings life)and the sudden lightning that, as from Zeus, can serve as warning (omen) andretribution, and which can destroy and be a cause of devastating fire and thus also ofthe regeneration/rebuilding that often follows from such fires and from the learning,the respect, that arises from appreciating warnings (omens) from the gods. All ofwhich perhaps explains fragment 64:

All beings are guided by Lightning

Enantiodromia in the Philosophy of Pathei-Mathos

In the philosophy of pathei-mathos, enantiodromia is understood as the process - thenatural change - that occurs or which can occur in a human being because of orfollowing . For part of is a 'confrontational contest' - aninterior battle - and an acceptance of the need to take part in this battle and 'face theconsequences', one of which is learning the (often uncomfortable) truth about one'sown unbalanced, strife-causing, nature.

If successful in this confrontation, there is or there can be a positive, moral,development of the nature, the character - the (physis) - of the person becauseof that revealing and that appreciation (or re-appreciation) of the numinous whose


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genesis is this pathei-mathos, and which appreciation includes an awareness of why is an error (often the error) of unbalance, of disrespect, of a going beyond thedue limits, and which is the genesis of the and of the modern error ofextremism. For the tyrannos and the extremist (and their extremisms) embody andgive rise to and perpetuate [1].

Thus enantiodromia reveals the nature of, and restores in individuals, the natural

balance necessary for to flourish - which natural balance is as [2] andwhich restoration of balance within the individual results in [3], manifest as is in the cultivation, in the individual, of wu-wei and (a fair andbalanced personal, individual, judgement).

Notes

[1] Heraclitus, fragment 80: , , []

One should be aware that Polemos pervades, with discord , and that beings are naturally born bydiscord.

See my Some Notes on and in Heraclitus B80 and also The Balance ofPhysis Notes on and in Heraclitus.

[2] In respect of the numinous principle of, refer to Appendix III.

[3] Although has a natural tendency to become covered up ( - concealment accompanies Physis) it can be uncovered through and.

Appendix IIIThe Principle of

is that noble, respectful, balance understood, for example, by Sophocles (amongmany others) - for instance, Antigone respects the natural balance, the customs andtraditions of her own culture, given by the gods, whereas Creon verges towards andfinally commits, like Oedipus in Oedipus Tyrannus, the error of and is thus"taught a lesson" (just like Oedipus) by the gods because, as Aeschylus wrote -

-


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The goddess, Judgement, favours someone learning from adversity.

Agamemnon, 250-251

In respect of, I write - spell - it thus in this modern way with a capital tointimate a new, a particular and numinous, philosophical principle, and differentiate itfrom the more general . As a numinous principle, or axiom, thus suggests

what lies beyond and what may have been the genesis of personified as thegoddess, Judgement the goddess of natural balance, of the ancestral way andancestral customs.

Thus, does not mean nor imply something theological, but rather implies thenatural balance, the reasoned judgement, the thoughtful reasoning that brings and restores, and which accumulated of a particularfolk or forms the basis for their ancestral customs. is therefore, as thenuminous principle, what may be said to be a particular and a necessary balancebetween and between the that often results when the personal,

the natural, quest for becomes unbalanced and excessive.That is, when (discord) is or becomes as suggested by Heraclitus inFragment 80 -

, , []

One should be aware that Polemos pervades, with discord , and that beings are naturallyborn by discord.

cc David Myatt 2012 CE

(Second edition)

This text is issued under the Creative Commons

(Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0) License

and can be freely copied and distributed, according to the terms of that license.


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